Level Up (A5E) Magic Item Price List

[tetrasodium]

Did you miss the post where I did exactly this?

You do not appear to have made such a post

if your talking about this post where you appear to reference

Spoiler: this.

That section is very much unrelated to the lack of market price in the price list for doing things like gaining copy access to the spells of local wizards/libraries, so unrelated that it's difficult to decide where to even begin correcting the disconnect.

A player can only make use of that section you note after they somehow obtain access to a spellbook or scroll other than their own and gaining that access is the omission. In the past there were rules for it, the wizard still needed to actually scribe the spell after gaining access to it. Maybe there is no market price because there is a downtime activity where a wizard spends a period of time exchanging spells to other wizards & walks away with some gold and/or an assortment of new spells based on their level, but that section is certainly not it either.

The situation that section & the omission creates is often

• gm you guys make it to town
• Wizard: I'd like to find someone to exchange spells with or buy some scrolls if I need to. I'm looking for x&y but open to other stuff if I can't find those.
• gm: This is kind of a rural town, there's nothing like that here but you know that you'd need to go to waterdeep or something major to do that
• fighter: "I want to buy a +1 greatsword, we are about to start seeing stuff with resist nonmagic weapons"
• GM: "Normally those are 500gp but you poke around & find one for... 600gp
• months later after repeating similar in nearly every town visited with few if any meaningful gains the party arrives at a big town but has no time to spare for the wizard to go around spending large amounts of time due to the needs of the adventure

Spell scrolls are listed at the same or higher prices as the xge ones, and they it's still consumed by copying using the same gp cost to scribe as when copying from a spellbook one could then sell unless the relevant text says otherwise.

 

[Faolyn]

• gm you guys make it to town
• Wizard: I'd like to find someone to exchange spells with or buy some scrolls if I need to. I'm looking for x&y but open to other stuff if I can't find those.
• gm: This is kind of a rural town, there's nothing like that here but you know that you'd need to go to waterdeep or something major to do that
• fighter: "I want to buy a +1 greatsword, we are about to start seeing stuff with resist nonmagic weapons"
• GM: "Normally those are 500gp but you poke around & find one for... 600gp
• months later after repeating similar in nearly every town visited with few if any meaningful gains the party arrives at a big town but has no time to spare for the wizard to go around spending large amounts of time due to the needs of the adventure

Why would a rural town have a +1 greatsword for sale at all? It would be someone's priceless belonging.

If someone in town has a +1 greatsword for sale, then why wouldn't there also be a spell scroll for sale? +1 weapons and spell scrolls of 3rd level and lower are both uncommon magic items, after all.

Why would the PCs think they're going to "start seeing stuff" with damage resistance? Why would the PC even know that damage resistance is a thing?

 

[Stalker0]

For the love of pete can we please get back to looking at magic item pricing!

 

[Kinematics]

I had some meandering thoughts about weapon pricing, but the post was lost, so I'm going to just summarize instead.

Armor: Looks reasonable, though the stuff in the 500 tier likely needs tweaking. Since a bunch of it is baseline armor which we don't have prices (I just pulled from the PHB), it's likely to have already been done. Each +1 to AC has a lifespan of a couple levels.

Shield: Has a different scaling from armor, but I think it's workable. The [rare] +1 entry starts at half the price of armor (1000 vs 2000), the +2 is close to the next tier of armor (7000 vs 8000), and the +3 continues the x7 rate to push it to 49,000. Because of the way shield AC interacts with armor AC, but conflicts with high damage weapons, I think this scaling rate works. Each shield has a lifespan of 6-7 levels.

Weapon: I don't like the scaling for weapons. I starts as half the shield rate — 500 → 3500 vs 1000 → 7000, but only goes up to 8000 for the +3. That means the +2 only has value for a couple levels, severely diminishing its utility lifespan (compared to about 5 levels for the +1).

There are a lot of weapons with specialized extra buffs (extra damage to dragons, undead, constructs, etc) that are priced in that intermediate area between +2 and +3 weapons (mainly 5000-8000). Of course most of them also require attunement, which should lower their costs because they're competing with other items for attunement slots.

The specialized weapons are largely better than a +3 weapon in their specialization, but are weaker outside of that. If all of these weapons were fully swappable, then the competition for gold would be somewhat reasonable. But since the +3 is better than those weapons outside their specializations, and it doesn't require attunement, then the scaling just feels wrong.

I have varying ideas that it should be priced somewhere between 12,000 and 16,000 GP, but it depends on how the designers want these weapons to interact with the rest of the system. For example, there's the focus on level 10 in the new leveling structure, and the designers may want the +3 to be acquirable by that level. (Wand of the War Mage, for example, also tops out at about the same price point.)

Wand of the War Mage: These magic items are useful, but limited. Only a small portion of a magic user's spells will involve attack rolls, and these only boost to-hit, not damage (unlike weapons). As such, they seem to be priced to more rapidly reach the +3 tier for magic users. However, to smooth out the progression ladder, I'd suggest the +2 have its price reduced to 2000. That will make each +increment worth about 4 levels.

While this makes this portion of a magic user's purchases cheaper, there are plenty of other wands competing for his gold as well (though usually requiring attunement, so not really as much as one might expect).

Thoughts

It seems like there's a trend to price "top-end" stuff such that it's something you can get by level 10 (~8000 GP), rather than scaling up into the late teens (aside from, say, +3 full plate plus a +3 shield). Given the focus that level has in the new system (with level 10 being a "Paragon" level in heritage), this makes a certain amount of sense, but it brings into question game balance vs monetary balance.

On the other hand, is a +3 weapon truly that momentous a difference compared to a +2, especially if specialization features can be added (as was hinted at earlier)? Is it OK to just allow it to show up at level 10?

 

[jeffh]

You do not appear to have made such a post
(Snip, snip)

(Shrug.)

You appeared to be straight up denying the existence of any details on copying spells, period. In fact you came very close to explicitly saying as much in the post I was replying to. I now see how it could be read a different way, the one you apparently had in mind, but that was by no means the only, or the most natural, reading. Notice how I don't appear to be the only person who misunderstood you in this particular way.

It simply did not occur to me in the moment that you might have such an obscure corner case in mind. I don't think it has ever happened in a campaign I've been involved in. If my initial impression had been correct, I could at least understand why you would perseverate over it to this extent! Not to mention using language like "pretty big omission" rather than something more reasonable such as "corner case it would be nice to see covered".

If that's all you meant, that's all you really needed to say. I don't understand why you find it worth writing reams and reams of text over.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why would a rural town have a +1 greatsword for sale at all? It would be someone's priceless belonging.

If someone in town has a +1 greatsword for sale, then why wouldn't there also be a spell scroll for sale? +1 weapons and spell scrolls of 3rd level and lower are both uncommon magic items, after all.

Why would the PCs think they're going to "start seeing stuff" with damage resistance? Why would the PC even know that damage resistance is a thing?

It's almost as if you aren't aware D&D isn't a life simulator but a game...

 

[CapnZapp]

For the love of pete can we please get back to looking at magic item pricing!

Sure. What does a spellbook page cost?

 

[Faolyn]

It's almost as if you aren't aware D&D isn't a life simulator but a game...

Personally, I lose interest in games that are so... gamist... in nature. I want to see some verisimilitude at least. If the setting is lousy with +1 weapons, or if I can think of a good reason why that +1 greatsword is on sale, then sure. Otherwise, no.

(And again: if a town has a common magic weapon for sale, why wouldn't they also have a common magic item like a scroll for sale?)

 

[Kinematics]

Healing Potions

When starting at 1st level, a healing potion seems terribly expensive. 50 GP for 4-10 points of healing? Basically, heals a single sword swing, and the action that you use to drink the potion means you probably just got hit by another sword swing, making the effort moot.

On the other hand, looking at the list of all the magic items, 50 GP is a tiny amount. Even at 5th level, I could buy a dozen healing potions. ... for 600 GP. Which is more than a +1 weapon, or a cloak of protection, or any number of other items.

Basically, if you need to use potions for healing, you're going to ruin your pocketbook. Which is of course why people don't use healing potions if there's any other option. Out of combat you can use hit dice, and in combat you try to use other options (healing spells, Second Wind, Healing Kit, etc). And even with healing potions, they're not very useful past level 3, which is why you have higher grade versions.

• Potion of Healing [common]: 4-10 HP, 50 GP
• Potion of Greater Healing [uncommon]: 8-20 HP, 150 GP
• Potion of Superior Healing [rare]: 16-40 HP, 550 GP
• Potion of Supreme Healing [very rare]: 30-60 HP, 1500 GP

These are single use consumable items. Pricewise, they're at the bottom of their rarity brackets (with the Supreme Healing potion being deliberately underpriced for its rarity). (Common starts at 50, Uncommon starts at 100, Rare starts at 500, Very Rare starts at 5000.) The problem is comparing non-consumable items with consumables within the same price brackets. (Will make a separate post on this issue.)

From Morrus's wealth chart, we have a certain amount acquired each level, but the starting wealth of the next level is less than the total gained in the previous. Presumably this is to account for general expenditures each level, such as for consumable goods (potions, scrolls, travel costs, etc). So I want to look at how much is spent during each level. So when it is reasonable to buy a given tier of potion?

• Potion of Healing (50): Level 2
• Potion of Greater Healing (150): Level 3
• Potion of Superior Healing (550): Level 7
• Potion of Supreme Healing (1500): Level 10

This is estimating the level based on being able to use about 1/3 of the wealth that's "consumed" each level (ie: the difference between starting+gained wealth of one level with the starting wealth of the following level).

Note: The analysis of healing potions is limited by the fact that I know that the devs have created a definition for HP, but not released it yet, so my approach to what they mean here is partly guesswork.

So, the question is, are these reasonable levels (and thus prices) for the purpose of using consumable healing items?

The scaling between basic healing and greater healing is much smaller than the scaling between the other healing potions. On the other hand, a basic healing potion is almost worthless for almost any purpose once you get past level 3 — and I'm being generous there by considering a wizard's HP at that point.

Basically, a basic healing potion is the trash potion of the adventuring world. A greater healing potion will still cover a good half of a wizard's HP even at level 7, and is generally good for 2 to 3 sword swings, which means you don't have to feel like it's a complete waste of an action in the middle of combat. However the basic healing potion is barely useful at levels 1-2, mainly just as an emergency backup when your healing options are severely limited and a couple strong punches can kill you.

My general view is that a greater healing potion is pretty useful throughout the mid levels. A superior healing potion does twice the healing for four times the cost, which is somewhat reasonable, even if a little iffy. The supreme healing is twice the healing for three times the cost, which is a reasonable scaling (and vastly better priced than the default 5000 for a very rare item).

In fact, reviewing the potions, each one is roughly twice as good as the previous. The first and last have a 3x scaling between them, but the middle has a 4x scaling. All things considered, I'd think a 3x scaling in the middle would be better. You only have to drop the price from 550 to 500 (the bottom of the rarity bracket) for it to be at a good spot relative to the 150 below it and the 1500 above it.

Summary: Reduce cost of the Potion of Superior Healing from 550 to 500.

 

[Stalker0]

Healing Potions

On top of this, there has been a house rule floating around the forums recently that I think is a really great one with healing potions, and might help their relevance if incorporated into Levelup's Actions. It is:

Healing Potions are bonus actions to consume.
If you choose to take an action to consume a potion, you get the maximum healing value.

The flavor idea is that with a quick gulp there is going to be spillage. A full action is a controlled drink where you get every bit of it.